Pushing the envelope: CaptureQuest makes online advertising "pop".

• Author: Beers, Heather
• Position: Tech Talk - Innovations in advertising - Brief Article

You've got mail" -- that familiar signal of incoming recipes from Aunt Mae or reports from management -- may now call attention to the hottest trend in advertising, Popmercials[TM]. And Provo-based CaptureQuest is the one pushing the envelope.

As an emerging leader of Popmercial[TM] advertising, Provo-based CaptureQuest has developed online technologies that combine the emotional impact of television advertising with the added value of targeted online distribution and tracking to measure campaign effectiveness.

According to clients like Toyota, Citibank and Compaq, CaptureQuest's strategy is exactly what advertisers are looking for.

Two years ago, CaptureQuest founders set out to develop more effective online advertising tools. "We saw banner ads weren't working, and we looked ahead as to what type of media might regain the user base's attention. We came up with the concept of the Popmercial[TM], and the company grew from there," says Tyler Thompson, CEO and president of CaptureQuest.

Company co-founder Andrew Smith says CaptureQuest's initial focus was on the technology, developing a patent-pending system that compresses the rich audio/visual media of a television commercial, adds direct-response "mouse-over" marketing tools, and makes it all accessible via e-mail and web-based browsers.

The company offers a suite of services packaged as its Adaptive Media System[TM], which includes creative production, online distribution, and campaign management that enables advertisers to track details, such as how many people view the ads, how they interact with them, and what return on investment the ads generate.

Kevin Gull, vice president of advertising and client services, explains, "It's not our intention to compete with advertising...